A new way of thinking about leadership

People have a lot to say about leadership. A Google search on ‘leadership’

yields over 500 million hits. Amazon lists 77,000 books on the topic. A massive

industry has emerged to help with leadership development. There seems to be

an increasing body of knowledge for leaders to understand about leadership.

But herein lies the paradox. Has anyone noticed that as ever-more diet books

are published, our society has become more obese? Similarly, CEO churn has

never been greater than it is right now. Also the Edelmann Trust Barometer has

shown significant drops in the level of trust in leaders. There appears to be little

compelling justification for the investment in current leadership development.

Does this mean we need to start looking at leadership through a different lens?

Is it time to start focusing on the supposed link between investment in leadership

development and organisational success?

We believe so. At BetterChange, we think it’s critical to start thinking of

leadership as an organisational capability rather than an individual competency.

You may think this runs counter to the traditional notion of a ‘leader’. But as

we outline in this paper, it is just one of several paradoxes that our leaders of

the future will need to reconcile.

Developing a high leadership competency in an individual does not always add up to strong organisational leadership capability. In the same way a sporting team of highly competent individuals does not always add up to the strongest team.

A new way of thinking about leadership

© Betterchange 2012

Working in a world of paradox

In today’s environment, the following are just some of the paradoxes that

modern leaders need to reconcile.

Risk v opportunity

Risk aversion is normally associated with mature/high control environments,

and opportunity seeking associated with small start-up or innovative entities.

Yet increasingly, we are seeing organisations and even government bodies

being exhorted to become less risk-averse and more opportunity seeking.

However, there is a balance to be achieved here. Either orientations (or both

at once, at varying levels) can be a part of the organisation’s culture. The key

is to clearly communicate how they can appropriately co-exist. For example,

there may be areas of the business where it is critical to remain vigilant

about risk. Similarly, there may be areas identified where opportunity must

be passionately pursued. The beliefs, values and behaviours of everyone

(particularly leaders) must be congruent on this.

Why leaders look different now

The world is undoubtedly a more complex and dynamic place to live and

work. Black and white has been replaced by numerous shades of grey.

There are more options, opportunities, ideas and technological resources.

On the flip side, there are more tensions, threats and unknown risks.

The skills and capabilities required of leaders in the coming decades will

be very different from those previously. These future challenges and

opportunities call for greater collective purpose, energy and action.

At BetterChange, we recognise that a successful leader must embrace a

new way of working. They must be comfortable with the notion that it no

longer makes sense to try and control every decision and risk. Importantly,

it is no longer desirable to control the means by which things get done.

Our environment is now too complex – we need to face it and work with it.

© Betterchange 2012

Control v freedom

Organisations typically opt for empowerment (or freedom) of the workforce

where there’s a need to adapt to fast changing environments, or there is a high

degree of variability and complexity in the business environment.

Some might argue, then, that this applies to all modern organisations. However

we believe there are still arguments ‘for and against’ more or less control in

the workplace.

High levels of control are generally required where human behaviour needs

to be constrained within specific boundaries – usually relating to risk levels

and delegated financial authority.

Innovative environments usually have a mix of structural controls, but incentives

are provided for the workforce to experiment and take risks.

It is something of a paradox that opting for an empowered workforce in

fact places higher demands on the management team. This is because they

remain ultimately responsible for an extended network of delegated authority,

which they have less control over. It requires a very sound strategy and robust

framework of checks and balances to be designed into the system.

Strategising v evolving

Gone are the days when a business developed a 15-year strategic plan they

could actually rely on. The days when capability could be built ahead of time,

and the customer would fall into the net. While the old ways may still apply for

a dwindling number of organisational models, ‘predict and prepare’ is virtually

obsolete in the form it used to exist.

Developing and implementing the strategic plan has long been a traditional

function of the leader. So if there is no longer a ‘plan’ per se, what will replace it?

What is the new leadership function?

The answer is complex. But at its essence, the future leader will be charged

with creating and implementing the new ‘evolving’ approach. Many organisations

are dismantling old style strategy groups, instead opting for groups that are

drawn from a mix of marketing, technology, operational and customer facing

people; all with the intention of shortening feedback cycles between what the

market wants and what they are able to deliver.

© Betterchange 2012

A better approach to leadership

At BetterChange, we believe a new approach to leadership is required.

This approach recognises leadership is an organisational capability rather

than an individual competency.

Developing a high leadership competency in an individual does not always

add up to strong organisational leadership capability. In the same way a

sporting team of highly competent individuals does not always add up to

the strongest team.

The following are our principles for building enduring leadership capability:

Engage with organisations as systems

It is getting harder and harder to generate positive progress independently.

The new opportunities for making positive progress can really only be

recognised across networks or systems.

Why then, is so much of the current leadership thinking focused on individuals?

Shouldn’t and couldn’t leadership capability be developed systemically?

At BetterChange, we think that meaningful leadership capability should

happen with the groups, teams and systems that represent their environment.

One way to do this is developing leadership capability around a set of

challenging assignments that engage the system.

Craft a challenging assignment

Developing a systemic leadership capability requires a challenge. It doesn’t

happen in theory – it happens in action, around a meaningful challenge.

Think of every historic example of leadership. It began with a personally

meaningful challenge.

At BetterChange, we think every initiative in leadership development should

begin with the careful design of a collectively meaningful challenge. It should

be a challenge that offers the potential to create systemic value. Our experience

tells us that these kinds of challenges need to be attractive, leveraging of

strengths, and ‘real’ for the team working on them.

© Betterchange 2012

Don’t be afraid to fail forward together

It is an emergent world. To what extent should we learn our way forward?

We like this example from US company, NUCOR, that has the following as

part of its values statement: ‘If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing

wrong’. (It’s not surprising that NUCOR leads its industry in innovation

of environmentally-friendly, production-increasing and cost-reducing

technologies).

We also recognise that not knowing what the outcome(s) will be is a

challenge for most people. One of the roles of the future leaders is to

demonstrate – both individually and collectively – that it’s okay to try

something new. The relationship between action and progress is not linear.

Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. Often small changes

have disproportionately large effects.

Build trust across the network

It’s important to recognise that – more than ever before – a leader’s

success is socially constructed. They do not operate in a vacuum.

Success is ‘co-created’ between the leader as an individual, a team,

and other stakeholders.

The modern organisational structure is far more fluid, and less structured.

Traditional command-and-control approaches can no longer succeed

across silos, sectors or systems. The mechanism that facilitates

cross-system progress is trust.

Trust-based cultures gravitate toward values that emphasise achievement,

affiliation, encouragement and personal satisfaction. Trust enables systems

to rapidly understand their reality, build capability, identify opportunity,

and more quickly realise higher shared value.

© Betterchange 2012

Better leadership begins today

We think that leaders already know enough about leadership. It is time to put

it into practise. BetterChange has developed a robust framework for translating

leadership know-how into meaningful progress – by thinking, acting and learning

in the real world.

If you’re ready for a different approach, we’d welcome the opportunity to share

these ideas with you.

There is an ongoing paradigm shift happening in effective leadership. Rob Fyfe,

the former CEO of Air New Zealand, is a local exemplar of this shift. The new

leadership style illustrates the transformation:

from me we

from leadership citizenship

from hierarchy holistic thinking

from led met

from predict & prepare learn forward

from independence interdependence

from policy and controls shaping behavior

from reactive proactive and creative

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

For more information:

M +64 21 884 360

E letstalk@betterchange.co.nz

PO Box 10231, Wellington

www.betterchange.co.nz

© Betterchange 2012